CHAPTER SIX

Ridge

I left them alone. It’s never easy leaving Lydia with someone new. I do trust Reva, but I still had to walk away and leave my child in someone else’s care. It should be easier by now I suppose, but I still miss her and worry about her.

I admit it was kind of a relief getting away from Reva, though. It’s easier to breathe in my office when I’m not inhaling the faint sweetness of cotton candy—some sweet perfume she wears, I guess. I can relax and get some work done. I only text her twice, once to send me a picture of what Lydia’s doing. They’re playing dolls. Lydia has evidently dragged out every plastic toy she’s ever owned and strewn the playroom carpet with them. All the animals and kids are lined up in rows watching a doll fashion show. I bet Reva has to applaud every time a Barbie comes down the runway in a ballgown and baseball cap. I chuckle at the scene. Lydia puts hats on her dolls because she is hell on doll hair—it’s always a rat’s nest. I text back, thanking Reva, and ask her to delete the picture per contract.

Then it’s ten minutes before I can get any work done because I’m thinking about her once more. Those long legs and perfect smile displaying that pretty mouth. It’s not easy at all to keep my mind on my work knowing what’s waiting at home.

I force myself to extract the thoughts of Reva from my mind and go to meetings and talk to a new client. I check in with my federal contact on the Rativan situation, which they assure me is under control, but, of course, somehow I doubt that. When I go home, ready to practice numbers with Lydia and police the chores, I expect to find the house a wreck of plastic. The nanny is bound to softball her the first day, try to win her over. I want Lydia to get along with her nanny, but I need the nanny to be an authority figure, not a best buddy. I hope I made that clear.

When I open the door, I hear music. In fact, I hear the soundtrack from Trolls blaring at what has to be chandelier-rattling volume. I make my way to the playroom to find out if the nanny has been tied up and gagged and forced to listen to Justin Timberlake on repeat.

To my astonishment, it’s clean. The floor does not have toys on it and probably not a speck of dust. The ocean of brightly colored plastic kitties, ponies and babies from the picture has been cleaned up and put away. Lydia is bopping around in her turquoise feather boa to the song with Reva is twirling her. They both turn to see me.

“Surprise!” Lydia bellows, arms flung out to display the cleanliness of the playroom, “we had to make room for the dance party so I got it cleaned up early!”

I scoop her up and spin her around. She’s happy, healthy, and in one piece. That’s a victory for me any day. She flings her arms around my neck, and I spit out the mouthful of aqua feathers that go along with the hug.

I am grateful. I’m always grateful to come home to my little girl. Grateful I get to be her father, and that I get to be the one to make sure she’s safe and has every chance at happiness. She wriggles down too soon to show me something she drew on her easel. Reva turns off the music, which elicits a howl of dismay from Lydia.

“We can dance more tomorrow,” she promises, “Right now I need to swing by Angela’s and get the rest of my stuff if that’s okay?”

“Certainly,” I assure, “the driver will take you wherever you want to go.”

“I won’t be long,” she affirms, bending down to Lydia’s level to tell her she’ll be right back. Lydia takes it seriously and nods. I’m impressed that Lydia doesn’t ask her to bring back a surprise—a tactic she’s been using successfully with me every time I left town for the last two years.

As soon as Reva’s gone, I scoop Lydia up and take her to the rocking chair. It’s our special bonding spot where we unwind there every evening and talk about our day.

“Best thing, worst thing,” I say, which is how we always start.

“Best thing was Gabbie’s back after not getting sick anymore. Worst thing is she was mean today and only played with Sawyer,” Lydia frowns.

I can’t help but be pissed at the kid who’s hurting my daughter’s feelings, but I act like an adult.

“Did you do what we talked about?”
“Yeah. I asked other people to play. I played with Colton until he wanted to do monkey bars. I told him he doesn’t need to do those because they’re not safe, but he told me not to boss him and went and did it anyway. So I made a fist!”

She shows me her fist. It’s cute and funny at first and I want to laugh at her baby rage at not being listened to, but part of me feels a pang that she warns other kids about safety. She should feel safer, feel braver. I hate that I’m having to keep her under so much security, and that I’ve somehow fed her my fears. That she knows how scared I am to lose her. She’s only five, yet I can’t just let her exactly be the carefree child she deserves to be.

“How were things with the new nanny?” I ask casually. I don’t use her name. I want to see what Lydia thinks.

“She’s good. Made me pick everything up just like you like,” she huffs, “Reva did a fun tree with me. She knows a lot about paint. It’s drying in the kitchen. I used my thumbs.”

Lydia shows me her thumbs, “This one was red, and this one got to be the yellow and when I mushed them together it made orange!” She beams excitedly.

“That sounds fun. Wanna show it to me?”

“She wouldn’t let me use blue. Cause it was a tree. Trees can’t be blue,” she stated, sounding grouchy.

“Actually, Matisse introduced the arbitrary use of color in the twentieth century. You can paint anything any color you want,” I tell her.

I don’t tell her that I know this because I did a stakeout when I was with military security and had to pose as an art historian. I certainly don’t tell her I had to shoot nine men on that mission, and that none of them survived, or that it could easily have been me who didn’t come home instead of one of them. I don’t tell her the things I did. I don’t tell her I think that the danger we’re in now might have something to do with karma. I just tell her trees can be blue if she wants them to be because she is child and should express herself however she wants to.

“Who do you want to give your bath? Me or Reva?”

“She can,” Lydia gives a shrug.

“Did you watch your cooking show?”

“Yeah. She used blueberries on the cake. Those taste nasty.”

“But it was the flag cake you like, right?”

“Yeah. I wish I had one.”

“Why, if you don’t like the berries?”

“I could stick those blueberries up meanie Gabbie’s nose!” she retorts.

Then we have to talk about how we treat people and not wishing for bad things to happen to others. I want her to be better than me. I want her to be a good person. Teaching her to be someone who doesn’t go around sticking berries up people’s noses would be a good start.

When Reva gets back, I see that she and Lydia giggle together. She’s gentle with my daughter. They clearly like each other, just the way it should be and how I wanted it to be. When Lydia comes out of the bath in her princess pajamas, her toenails shine with glittery blue-green nail polish that’s freshly applied. I pretend to think it means she’s really a mermaid. She giggles and acts like I’m right because any child would love to be acknowledged as a fairytale creature. I finally read her a book and kiss her good night. Now I could think about other things.

I hate myself for being so attracted to Reva. Because all throughout that idyllic evening, I want her so much. Seeing her rapport with Lydia reminds me I did the right thing in hiring her and that I can’t do the wrong thing and lay a hand on her. Not now. Not ever.

I go take a shower; a long one. I turn the cold water on blast for a moment and try to shame myself into calming down. I then turn the dial to hot and attempt to think of what’s on my schedule tomorrow. I try to center my mind on what is most important, but her face is in my mind. I shut my eyes against the sharp spray of the shower.

I can’t stop.

I think of that moment when we were on the couch, and she touched my hand. I think of her hands, the long, tapered fingers, the pale pink polish on her nails, the soft skin of her palm. I can practically feel it wrapped around me as I give in and stroke my stiff, hard cock. I give myself up to it, to the surge of sensation riding through my body. Every reaction she has set off since the minute she walked in my door for her interview is released in my fast, longing strokes. The coltish way she stopped in the hall and stared and bit her rosy lips. I want to take those lips with mine. I want to kiss those soft, yielding lips and coax them open, pushing my tongue deep into her mouth to taste her. Just the thought of kissing her makes me impossibly harder.

Her body, long-limbed and athletic, has curves in all the right places. The full hips, the high breasts. I don’t even picture her naked. I imagine her in shorts and a white tank top with nothing under it. Her nipples are pert and pointed, straining against sheer fabric. I don’t last long after that thought forms in my mind. My hand slick with soap pumps my cock until I’m spent from thinking of Reva, a strained groan escaping my mouth. All this from fantasizing of my daughter’s nanny.

I fucking hate myself for it. I scald myself with hot water, punish myself with a blast of freezing cold, trying to wash the stain of it off me. I swear to myself it will never happen again.